Leading Experts

At Kings Langley School we believe in ensuring our staff have the highest quality continuous professional development (CPD) to ensure they deliver a truly exceptional experience for young people. We also believe that a one off experience is not valuable and we want those that work with us to understand our school better. At Kings Langley School the following leading experts are committed to a 3 year programme of evaluation and CPD, ensuring our staff have the best professional development which enables our students to have exceptional experiences. Each person below is a leader in their field of expertise and we are delighted they are actively working with us.

David Bartram OBE

David has led special educational needs and disability (SEND) provision in London schools for over 15 years. He has worked closely with the Department for Education to develop SEND policy and was an expert advisor to the Timpson Review on school exclusions. David has worked directly with over four hundred school leadership teams across the UK to improve their provision for disadvantaged children. David was Director for SEND at the London Leadership Strategy, advisor to the Mayor of London's education team and currently provides support to a range of teaching school alliances and local authorities on the strategic development of SEND provision.

David is author of the SEND Review Guide, a national peer-review framework that has now been downloaded by over 5000 schools. He is also editor of Great Expectations, leading an effective SEND strategy in school, published by John Catt Educational: http://www.johncattbookshop.com/great-expectations-leading-an-effective-send-strategy-in-school

David has sat on a number of SEND consultations at the DfE and gave oral evidence at the Public Bill Committee on the Children and Families Bill. David was awarded an OBE for Services to Education in the 2016 New Year's Honours list.

Emma Kell

 Dr Emma Kell has almost 25 years of experience as a teacher and leader in UK secondary schools and currently teaches in Alternative Provision. She is parent to two daughters at King Langley School and works as the staff wellbeing Governor. She is a qualified Performance Coach, speaks regularly on teacher wellbeing, recruitment and retention and works regularly with new teachers, middle leaders, school leaders and governors across the country. Emma writes for a variety of publications including TES, Education Support and BBC Teach. She has completed a doctorate on teacher well-being and parenting at Middlesex University and is author of How To Survive in Teaching (Bloomsbury, 2018)  A Little Guide For Teachers: Wellbeing and Self-Care and A Little Guide for Teachers: Engaging Parents and Carers with School, to be published in October 2022. 

Christine Counsell

Christine is an independent education consultant specialising in curriculum and teacher development, working nationally and internationally.  She is also a member of Ofsted’s Curriculum Advisory Panel advising on the 2019 Ofsted framework. Christine Counsell has been a leading curriculum developer in history for the past decade. She is editor of the influential professional journal for history teachers, Teaching History. She is leader of the PGCE History course at the Faculty of Education at Cambridge University. In 2006 the University of Cambridge awarded her its Pilkington Prize for outstanding teaching. In 2015, she served on the DfE’s Workload Challenge group for Planning and Resources. In 2016, Christine was appointed Director of Education at a Norfolk-based Multi-Academy Trust, where she launched a Trust-wide knowledge-rich curriculum for primary schools, secured DfE funding to establish the long-term impact of a broad curriculum in boosting reading standards for disadvantaged pupils, implemented processes for Trust-wide collaborative curriculum design in secondary subjects and founded a large SCITT, distinctive for its subject-specificity.

Dr Kathy Weston

Dr Kathy Weston holds a Masters and Doctorate in Social Science (Criminology) from the University of Cambridge and worked for many years as a policy researcher and research fellow in education. She is the co-author of two books on “Engaging Parents” (Bloomsbury, 2018; 2020) and a sought-after keynote speaker. Kathy works with a team of qualitative researchers and collaborates with eminent mental health and other professionals to source, curate and develop resource information that can empower parents, carers or those who work with children. As a Tooled Up school we are delighted to have Kathy as part of the team.

Tom Sherrington

Tom Sherrington has worked in schools as a teacher and leader for 30 years. He is now a consultant specialising in teacher development and curriculum and assessment planning. He is the author of the popular teacherhead.com website and a recent book ‘The Learning Rainforest’, a model for great teaching in real classrooms.  Tom is a regular contributor to ResearchEd events and other conferences for teachers and policy makers. He has explored the Principles of Instruction published in 2012 in American Educator magazine, grouping the 10 principles into four main themes linking the evidence from research to the practical implications for teachers. What do more effective teachers do? Why does this work? What are the models of learning that underpin the strategies?

Marc Rowland

Marc is the lead for the Education Endowment Foundation’s National Research School Network on the roll out of their national Pupil Premium training programme. Marc has also worked with the Department for Education and over 500 individual schools to support them with their strategies to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. He has spoken to approximately 10,000 school leaders at conferences on Pupil Premium, from Northumberland to Cornwall. Marc is an award winning author, ‘An Updated Practical Guide to the Pupil Premium’, which was published in December 2015 (John Catt Educational). His latest book ‘Learning without Labels’ was also published by John Catt in March 2017. Marc has also contributed to a number of other publications, such as ‘The Forgotten Third’, edited by Roy Blatchford CBE, ‘Great Expectations’, edited by David Bartram OBE, and ‘Spotlight on Disadvantage’ from the National Governors Association.